Saturday, October 31, 2015

Nigeria Sets South Africa's MTN Fine Deadline

Nigeria's telecoms
regulator said Thursday it has set a November 16 deadline for South
African mobile giant MTN to pay a $5.2 billion fine for failing to
disconnect unregistered SIM cards.

"The deadline
set for the payment of the fine is November 16," Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) spokesman Tony Ojobo told AFP.

"The
key issue is if MTN breached the law or not. Certainly, there was a
breach. And if there is a breach, we will apply the law."

Early
in August the NCC issued a directive to mobile telecoms companies
operating in Nigeria to deactivate all unregistered SIM cards within
seven days or face severe sanctions.

MTN -- Africa's largest
telecoms firm -- missed the deadline to deactivate its 5.1 million
unregistered subscribers, prompting a 200,000-naira ($1,000) fine for
each unregistered SIM.

The penalty saw the company's shares crash
on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and raised questions about the
renewal of its licence in Nigeria next year if the fine goes unpaid.

MTN had more than 62.8 million subscribers in Nigeria by the second quarter of this year.

Senior
officials of the Nigerian government, the NCC and MTN began talks in
Abuja on Thursday to thrash out a solution to the matter, Ojobo
confirmed.

But he did not specify what precise sanctions MTN could face.

Under
the law, the NCC's powers include "granting or revoking of permits for
connection of customer equipment" and "determination of services and new
undertakings eligible for licensing from time to time".

On
what would happen if MTN failed to meet the deadline, Ojobo said: "When
we get to the bridge, we will know how to cross it. The deadline set
for the payment of the fine is November 16."

"If
the situation will change in any way, then the government at the top
will have to so direct. But for now, the mood is to apply the law."